


Morning

by QueenIX



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4709996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenIX/pseuds/QueenIX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew it was a little strange, sitting here on a lonely mountainside, talking to no one at all, but she decided not to let it bother her. The mountain was the only one listening, and it would keep her secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning

 

It was a fine morning. It was springtime in the Dakhur province, Kira’s favorite time of year. The sun was bright, the sky was clear, and the breeze was warm, but not too warm. The humidity that would come with the summer rains and would thicken the air with an uncomfortable, sticky heat was still weeks away. It was the perfect time of year to spend a morning on a sunny Bajoran mountainside.

Captain Kira breathed deeply of the free air as she knelt on the ground, smiling to herself. It was _good_ to be home, even if her purpose for being here was a somber one.

She turned her attention back to her work. A teasing breeze picked up her hair, toying with it for a bit, then laid it over her eyes. She pushed it away impatiently, tucking it behind her ear with dirt-stained fingers, heedless of the dark streak she painted across her cheek. 

Green and tender shoots of early growing vines had reached up from the Bajoran mountain soil, uncurling themselves from winter’s sleep to wind lovingly around the gravestone of Tekeny Ghemor. Kira peeled them away from the headstone and removed their roots so Tekeny’s name would show clear. Kira had grieved for Tekeny almost as hard as she had grieved over the loss of her own father, and the experience had changed everything her younger self had thought true. Through Tekeny, through their shared grief and their shared path to forgiveness, Kira had learned to love that which she hated most, a deeply healing experience her battle-scarred _pagh_ had desperately needed. Because of Tekeny Ghemor, Kira Nerys had learned to love her enemy. Keeping his grave tended was the least she could do to repay him.

Kira removed one last vine from Tekeny’s grave and sat back on her knees, checking her work. It was good. Tekeny’s marker was clean now, bright again, and Kira was satisfied. Her expression was one of thoughtful peace as she closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Prophets for the lesson, and the gift, of having known Tekeny Ghemor.

Opening her eyes again, Kira turned to the grave of her father, Kira Taban. His marker was more weathered, older, the arched stone more pocked and picked at by the elements as he had been in the ground much longer than her Cardassian friend. Kira shifted her knees and moved her body to her father’s graveside, digging her fingers into the crevices and cracks of the Bajoran carvings that adorned his marker. She mucked out built-up dirt and detritus, disregarding the stone’s rasp on her fingers, a sandy scraping that tore at the flesh of her fingertips and in some places, drew blood. After all, this was her duty. This was how these things were done on Bajor, by family, alone, with no tools. Bajorans tended to their dead by hand.

After the carved symbols were clear again, Kira found more of the same spring vines curling around her father’s headstone. Using the same diligent care she had with Tekeny’s grave, she removed all that threatened to grow high and cover his name. The rest of the greenery, the grasses, the flowers, the weeds that covered the place where her father’s body was buried she left alone to grow as they pleased. That was also the Bajoran way.

Kira dusted off her hands, and then rolled off her knees to sit with legs folded next to the grave of her father. Beads of sweat had formed above her lip and along her hairline. She checked the sky and saw that the sun had already climbed to mid-morning, moving towards noon. She had been on the mountainside longer than she’d thought. She needed to leave soon if she was to avoid the afternoon heat. She still had to hike back down to Dakhur, and if she stayed too long, the descent would be difficult, getting hotter and hotter as she made her way down to the crowded city below. But for now, just now, with her duty done, and with the soft spring breeze still toying with her hair, she decided not to worry about the future. She had some time to sit and visit with the past.

Kira talked to her father often, even when she wasn’t next to his grave. Whenever she had problems that were weighty and important and that were dependent on a decision from her to solve, she would retreat to her office or her quarters, shut the rest of the station out, and think. When she had trouble coming up with a solution on her own, or when the answer required hard actions that Kira was loathe to take, she would think about her father. She would see his face in her mind, hard to remember now since he’d been gone so long, mostly just a sketch, an impression of the man that had been, and she would ask him what he thought she should do. But he never answered.

Kira knew it wasn’t really her father she was talking to, it was herself, her own mind trying to make sense of things, to process them and organize the chaos into something she could use. Talking to her long-dead father was wholly imaginary and had never yielded any direct wisdom. But remembering his smile, remembering the warmth of his voice when he would encourage her was enough. It restored her confidence and gave her the courage to believe in her own strength. And then the answers would come.

Today, however, was different. Today marked the twentieth anniversary of her father’s death. Through her busy haze of obligations leading DS9, she’d almost missed it. The date suddenly stood out on her calendar as she was trudging her way through her intermarry, trying to find time for a Lissepian freighter captain who’d been begging a moment for weeks. When she’d realized the date, the year and its significance, Kira had penciled the captain in for a quick meeting that evening, and then promptly canceled everything else on her calendar for the two days following. Much to the confusion of her senior staff, she hadn’t said why. This was a private time, her purpose was private, and they didn’t need to know any more than that.

Kira drew breath to speak, but hesitated. She knew it was a little strange, sitting here on a lonely mountainside, talking to no one at all, but she decided not to let it bother her. The mountain was the only one listening and it would keep her secrets.

“Twenty years, Papa,” Kira began, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. They’ve gone by so fast. So many things have happened since I saw you last, so many things to tell you, I don’t know where to start…”

Kira trailed off, looking away from her father’s grave, letting her gaze grow unfocused as she gathered her thoughts. “I guess I should start with the Lissepian. I owe him one. Or I owe him a punch in the face, depending on how you want to look at it. If he hadn’t been such a pest, I would’ve missed today. I wouldn’t have realized it’s been two whole years since I came to see you and Tekeny. This date marks the twentieth anniversary of your death, but after I did the math, I figured out it also marks a date for me. As of today, I have been no one’s child for one year longer than I was someone’s child.”

Kira bit her lip, blinking back tears. “No one’s child. Not a nice thought, and if that Lissepian hadn’t been so instant, I might never have had it, so I kinda want to hit him for it. But I also would've failed to do the only duty I have left as a daughter, so...I guess I won’t…

Kira took a cleansing breath before going on. “So how are you and Tekeny getting along? Good, I hope. I buried him here in the Bajoran tradition because I wanted him to get a chance to meet you. There was so much about him that reminded me of you, and I just knew in another world, in a different life, you two would’ve been fast friends. I hope I did right, by both of you. Dukat wanted Tekeny’s body for Cardassia, but I refused. There was no one left there who loved him like I did, no one left to tend to him, and I think he would have been happy knowing he was resting here because somewhere on Bajor, I think his Iliana rests, too. Her death remains unconfirmed, but there’s been no sign she’s still alive. And I’ve watched for it….You can tell Tekeny I still have her bracelet, the one he passed to me. I don’t wear it, it feels strange, it’s not mine, but I like to hold onto to it, turn it in my hand and think this crazy thought that one day I can restore it to her. If by some miracle Iliana is found, her father is gone now, and I want to give back to her what her father gave to me…

“And how about my brothers, how are they? They both would’ve been grown men by now, maybe had families even. Sometimes I wonder what kind of lives they would’ve had. I don’t remember much of either of them, but I do remember Pol picking me up and swinging me around, singing that stupid song he made up. _‘Neri-neri, little Neri, silly little sister. Do we pick her up or knock her down, punch her head or kiss her?’_  I hated that song, it was so annoying. But I loved it at the same time…And our mother. I hope she’s with you, too. I could never find out where Dukat interred her. The bastard died and went to hell where he belongs before I had the chance to ask. But I hope you and Mother were reunited and are together in the Celestial Temple, where I’ll see you both one day….You know, Papa, it took me so long to forgive her, but you helped me. At first I was so _angry_ with you, that you let me think she was dead and never told me the truth. I had to find it out from _Dukat!_...But, on her birthday one year, I bought her lilacs like usual and I thought about you both, and it struck me why you never told me about what happened to her. It was better to for Meru’s daughter to think she was dead than to let her bear her mother’s shame. I know now you did it out of love and that you were protecting us both. If you--her husband, the most wronged out of all of us in this--could still love her that much, than I could love her, too.

“And Bareil. I know he’s fine, he’s where he belongs, with the Prophets. Such a truly faithful man, and how I admired him for it. He would have made an incredible Kai. But the Prophets took him at the right time. I can’t deny that now, knowing what I know, and I’ve accepted it, though it took me a lot of prayer and a lot of time…Besides, as much as I loved Bareil, I would have made a terrible vedek’s wife. Can you imagine, your rough-and-tumble, gun-toting daughter giving up her glory to live on Bajor to be an arm piece for a temple leader?...I certainly can’t…And if I’m telling the truth- and I am, Papa, with you- if Bareil had become Kai, I would’ve lost him to the Prophets either way. Bareil had one love that was higher than any other, and it would’ve always taken priority for him, as it should be…”

“So many people I’ve lost, Papa. So many more friends and family I haven’t even mentioned. Like Lupaza and Ferrell. I like to imagine them having a rolling good time up there together, telling dirty jokes, drinking, laughing, and generally disrupting the peace, just like they did in this life. And there was Jadzia, and Tella Lenn, and Provimila, and Vedek Tonsol... Vedek Falla... And the Emissary. I never mourned for him, he’s also where he belongs, but sometimes I think of his corporeal life and I wish Ben Sisko was still with us. I miss his wisdom. And I miss his singing, too…But I have learned to live with all of this because I know I’ll see you all again one day when my time comes… “

Kira paused, struggling. She swiped at her nose and heaved a sigh. Even with only the eternal ear of the mountain listening, she wasn’t so sure she could talk about this next part. It was buried deep, this other grief, not clean and final like the rest of her losses. Not certain or finished. She plucked angrily at the grass by her thigh, shredding the innocent little shoots as she pulled their roots from the ground. An ant bit her finger and she stopping her assault on the grass to pluck it off. She put her finger to her mouth and sucked at this new sting even as the pain of an old sting filled her.

“Papa,” Kira began, dropping her hand, “there is one loss I can’t get passed, an answer this motherless daughter cannot find in the scriptures, and if you were here with me now, if you could answer one question for me, I would ask you this one thing…How do you bury someone who’s not dead?”

Kira paused again, waiting for an answer. Not that she really expected to get one. Again, she had to find it for herself, she knew that, and letting herself talk about what she had purposefully and artfully avoided talking about for the last two years was the only way she was going to get that answer. She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her a face, taking comfort in its heat before she confronted this next, and latest, grief.

“It’s been two years since he left, and I still think about him every day. He’s in my thoughts, in my head, scowling and objecting and arguing and pointing out all the things about myself I don’t want to see, but that I need to see. He could be so damned _frustrating_ sometimes. But, I still miss him. He was the best friend I ever had. He knew me so well, Papa, and when I was with him, it was as if all of the other things that were wrong with me, all of the memories and blood and smoke that wanted to choke me and drown me just disappeared. He made them all go away, just like that. Instant peace. No one else--not even you--could do that for me.” She barked a short laugh. “And that was all _before_ I realized I was in love with him. It took me so long to figure that out. You always said I was stubborn.”

Kira drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. She closed her eyes and her voice dwindled to a whisper. “I dream about him, Papa, all the time. Such beautiful dreams. About the real him. Who would’ve ever thought I’d fall so hard for an alien, a non-Bajoran? But I did. And it was such a _gift_ to be with the real him, so unique and so precious. When I dream of him, that’s the him I dream is in bed with me, who makes love to me, not the form he wore for the rest of the world…Sometimes my dreams are so real it’s like he never left at all, but then I wake up, and--”

Kira halted that last thought, biting her lip. The tears she’d been holding back finally fell, she couldn’t stop them now. They ran hot and bitter over her tilted face, soaking the dark cloth of her Starfleet uniform. Not once had she indulged herself like this, not once had she ever spoken of it, this pain, this loss, and now, with only the mountain listening, Kira let it all leach out of her like poison from a fouled wound. She turned her head and buried her face in her knees as her body wracked with hard, breath-stealing sobs.

Footsteps rustled the grass behind her. Someone--a man--called her name. She knew that voice. Her heart lept at the familiar tone, but she ignored it. He couldn’t be real. It had to be a trick of the wind, or her mind, which wasn’t in the best state right now. This whole thing had been foolish, she should never had let herself say aloud the things she had told the mountain because the mountain wasn’t the only one listening. Kira had been listening, too, had heard her own words, and now she couldn’t deny them. She couldn’t deny the truth she hadn’t wanted to face. Odo was gone, truly gone, and no matter that he was out there somewhere in the universe, Kira was certain their paths were forever severed. It was time to bury that part of her past, like she had so many others. It was over now. She pulled in a deep breath and cried even harder.

Kira was deeply religious, but she wasn’t superstitious. If she was, she might have believed that the man who lifted her carefully from the ground and carried her in strong, familiar arms had been sent by the Prophets themselves, just when she needed him most. As it was, she could only be grateful that he was there at all, however he had gotten there. Her tears slowed down and she was tempted to open her eyes. It was unnerving being carried about to who knew where, but she kept them tightly closed. She had no wish to break whatever spell this was and make the magic disappear.

The spell was finally broken when she felt her body and that of her rescuer sliding down. It felt like falling and she panicked, her eyes snapping open. She blinked dumbly and sniffled, and found herself sitting under the big, weather-twisted tree that was near the gravesite. She was seated between two long legs, knees akimbo to either side of her, with two big, work-weathered hands resting on her waist.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes again, and let her head fall back on the solid wall of his chest. “Shakaar,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” he replied. “It wasn’t an easy thing to find you, either. I called your station, and your first told me you were planet-side, but he didn’t know where you’d gone. I had my assistants running checks through every data base, trying to figure out where you'd docked. We found your empty shuttle and your comm badge, so we switched to searching inn data bases, checking with every single one in the city to see if you’d registered somewhere but no luck. Then this dumb farmer finally got smart and remembered the date, and I knew exactly where you were.”

“Nice story,” Kira replied. She turned around to scowl at him. “And obviously the moral of it is I didn’t want to be found, and if the ‘dumb farmer’ figured out why I was here, then why did he interrupt what he knew was a private time? What was so damned important that it couldn’t wait?”

Shakaar ignored Kira’s sharp tongue and grinned at her. He traced her nose gently. “Too much sun. You’re burnt. No sunscreen, I take it. But then you always were a little too careless with yourself, Kira Nerys.”

“Edon.” Kira huffed, knocking his hand away, “Why are you here?”

“Are you sorry I came? Because I can always leave.”

Kira’s eyes dropped to loam underneath her. She wasn’t really happy about anyone seeing her in the state Shakaar had just found her in, but no, she wasn’t sorry he was there. She turned her face away from him and rested her back on his chest.

“You may stay, Shakaar.”

“Why, thank you, your majesty.”

Kira laughed a little and lightly punched his knee. “Stop it.”

Shakaar chuckled and set two big, warm hands on her arms, rubbing them gently. She calmed at his soothing touch, at the friendly weight of his hands on her shoulders. Silence stretched between them, companionable and mutual, both filled with their own private thoughts as they looked on the newly tended graves a just few meters away.

A sudden gust of mountain wind blew through the tree boughs above them, whipping the branches into a frenzy. Kira and Shakaar both laughed and covered their faces as they were peppered with last year’s spring-moistened leaves. They spent the next few minutes giggling and picking dead foliage from each other’s clothing.

Shakaar plucked a last leaf from Kira’s hair and gave it back to the wind. “Nerys, you should know something. Everything you said to your father, I heard it. All of it. As I climbed the path, some crazy trick of these mountain winds carried every word to me. I know your words were private and I just…I thought you should know.”

Kira kept her face carefully blank. Not only had Shakaar found her in a pitiful state, he also knew why, and it galled her. So much for privacy. But she knew he hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Can we talk about it?” he asked, stroking her cheek. “It’s got a lot to do with why I was looking for you in the first place.”

Kira wasn’t so sure she wanted to do anymore talking on this mountain. Apparently, it was a gossip, and she had been wrong to trust her secrets to it. But her curiosity was piqued. Why _had_ the First Minister of Bajor come looking for her all the way up here?

“Fine. You got me. Let’s talk. What does my little mental meltdown have to do with why you came looking for me?”

“Nerys, it wasn’t a mental meltdown, it was an open heart, and don’t be ashamed of it. Besides, everything you said, everything you poured out on this mountain, I already knew. You never had to tell me. I lived the same life, lost some of the same friends, including your dad. I cared about him, too. The whole Shakaar did. He was only one of us who managed to make it through the Occupation without hate staining his _pagh._ And as for the others…the so many others…” He heaved a sigh. “Anyone who came out of what we did has these feelings, Nerys, and they’re nothing to be ashamed about.”

Kira scoffed at that and sat up, scooting around so she could face him. “And the part about Odo? You heard all that, too, right? Are you going to tell you have those feelings, too, Edon, and that you dream about making love to a Changeling every night?”

“Well, maybe not those feelings,” Shakaar said. “I liked Odo just fine, he was a great guy. But I sure didn’t want to sleep with him.”

“It’s not funny, Shakaar,” she returned, scowling darkly at him. “Don’t make jokes.”

“All right, all right, I’m sorry. Look, sitting on private mountains and letting the wind have your tears is your coping mechanism. Macho detachment and jokes are mine.”

Kira bit her cheek. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I use those, too.”

“I know,” Shakaar replied. He tucked her hair behind her ear. “But hearing you talk about Odo like that…It made me really see why the shrine broke us up in the first place. I never understood it until then, until I heard how you felt about him. I never wanted to understand. I was jealous as hell when I heard you two became lovers. But I see now. It was meant to be. You needed Odo, he needed you. And apparently, the Prophets needed you both to get rid of the Dominion.”

“Oh, come on, Edon." Kira snorted a laugh. “That make it sounds like Odo and I were god-touched or something.”

“Nerys, I hate to say it, but maybe you were. I’m not faithful to the Prophets like you, not since they watched Bajor burn for fifty years and did nothing to stop it, but even I can’t help but wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"About fate, Nerys. Destiny. You told me that three times, Odo could've gone home and been with his own kind, something he wanted all of his life, and three times he refused. But _why_ didn’t he go?"

"I'd love to hear your theory."

"He stayed for _you_ , Nerys," Shakaar said. "Not for any other reason. And when he did finally decide to go home, it was to save us all. That’s in your official reports from the Cardassian front. What I’m guessing isn’t in those reports is that Odo could make that choice because you finally returned his love. A man in love, Nerys, is one who has purpose. Who has something to protect. And Odo protected you, your home, right to the end, in biggest and most final way he could and became _exactly_ the right person, in the right place, at the right time…Sounds like a pretty fated path to me.”

Kira thought over Shakaar’s words, let them sink in. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. They were too much, the things he’d said. She couldn’t let herself think the same way or it would make all of this even harder. The way Shakaar put it, the Prophets had wanted her to suffer and lose, and that she wouldn’t believe.

 “Since when did a dumb farmer get so smart about threads of fate?” she snipped.

“Well, I have learned a thing or two since last I hewed a hoe. I even learned how to run a planet. And speaking of threads of fate, there’s more.”

“No,” Kira said, shaking her head. “Uh-uh, no more. I’ve had enough for one day, Edon. Can we talk about something else, or better yet, not talk at all?”

“But it’s the reason I’m here, Nerys. We keep getting sidetracked. I sure as hell didn’t come all the way up here to laud the virtues of your ex-boyfriend.”

Kira heaved a long sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, fine. Let’s hear it.”

“I went back to the shrine, Nerys. In Kendra.”

“By yourself? That’s kind of odd.”

“The acolytes thought so, too, but they still let me in. I told them I needed to seek the path alone, and I am the Prime Minister, so what else could they do?”

“But why that particular shrine? It’s for couples. Last I checked, that means two people, not one.”

Shakaar heaved a sigh and looked away from her. His expression grew pensive. “You’ve been on my mind a lot lately, Nerys. A whole lot. To the point I wasn’t getting anything else done, and it was driving me nuts. I wanted to call you, but I knew you believed the shrine the first time around and would honor the decision of the Prophets. So, I decided to ask the Prophets again. To ask if they were sure we weren’t meant to be. I’ve never stopped loving you, Nerys, and I was never satisfied with their answer the first time, but I went along with it and let you go, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But, as I said, you were where you were supposed to be without me, you were with _who_ you were supposed to be with then, and it wasn’t me. But Odo’s gone now, for good it seems. So I went to the shrine and asked about you and me, and instead of letting the acolytes read the waters and tell me the answer, I sent them away. It was then that I was shown a vision.”

“Stop right there,” Kira warned. “You’re not supposed to tell me about the visions. It’s sacred, you know that.”

“But this one, Nerys, I think I am supposed to share, so just listen to me already. My vision from the waters was clear. No weird dream images or symbolism, nothing to interpret through hours of long meditation and searching my _pagh_. What they showed me was clean. Simple. As real as the day around us.

"In my vision, there was a farm. Catterpod fields with a ready crop, fruits as big as barrels as far as the eye could see. In the field was a young man with his back to me, harvesting. Big, strapping kid, not as big as me, but almost. He was shirtless, sweating, it was hot work. He stopped to swipe his brow with a cloth he pulled from his back pocket and turned around. He looked right at me through the waters and yelled something, I don’t know what, one word, and waved at me. He was smiling, like he knew me…And Nerys, this kid, this young farmer. He had your dad’s smile, and my eyes. I knew him, then, too, I felt it, I’d known him all his life. I loved him deeply, I was so _proud_ of him. I reached up to wave back and…”

“And?”

“And the waters went dark and he was gone.”

“What does it mean?” Kira asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? He was our son.”

“ _Our_ son…My son? And yours? You’re sure?”

“About as sure as I ever get with this religious stuff. Nothing is ever sure, Nerys, but I think that we need to return to the shrine together, and see if he’s still there. And now you know what is so damned important that I tracked you down, trudged up a mountain, and crashed your family grave to find you. Will you come with me to Kendra, Neyrs?” He cupped her face in his hands. “Will you come see our son?”

Could it be true? Did she let herself believe it? Kira’s hand fluttered over her womb, resting there. A child. A son. A new future and a new path, one full of life, not death. Tears started again, but they were happy ones this time. Grateful ones. She reached up and took Shakaar’s hands in hers.

“Oh, Edon. I do want to see him. Let’s go right now.”

Shakaar grinned and rose. He reached down a hand to help Kira up. He brushed a few remaining leaves from her clothes and then pulled her into a hug. They stayed that way for a time, wrapped together under the weather-twisted tree. Shakaar finally released her, kissed her brow, and Kira smiled up at him.

Taking her hand in his, Shakaar walked with Kira down the mountain, and on to their new path.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on characters belonging to Paramount. The characters are theirs, this story is mine.


End file.
